


And the Long Rains Were Falling

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Between Episodes, M/M, Mid-Canon, Pole Dancing, Pre-Relationship, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-22 16:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12486176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Caught in a late summer storm, Victor talks Yuuri into sheltering with him in a love hotel.





	And the Long Rains Were Falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piscaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piscaria/gifts).



After winning the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship, Yuuri felt buoyed up. Beyond the rush a win always brought him, it was proof for the world that Victor taking off to come coach him was, maybe, not a complete mistake and waste of his time. And as for himself – he had gotten used to skating for Victor, day after day, but it was different doing so at a competition, in front of a crowd, showing them what he and Victor had made together. He had liked it, a lot. Not even smashing his head into the side of the rink, and the odd-looking bruises he had afterward, could detract from that sensation.

Now all Yuuri had to do was not screw it up with another meltdown, like the one he'd had last year, or by simply failing to live up to even his own standards, let alone Victor's. Yuuri spent the days after the competition vacillating between elation at how well he had done and a kind of despair that his mental weakness was going to flare up again and mess everything up. Again. Only it would be worse this time, because this failure wouldn't just reflect on himself (and Celestino, who at least had other students like Phichit who didn't screw up all the time, and his hometown), it would make Victor seem like a bad coach. Yuuri couldn't do that to _Victor_. The thought of doing anything to tarnish Victor's reputation made him nauseous.

But it was his problem to deal with, so he did the best he could and didn't bring it up. If Victor noticed anything was off, he didn't ask him about it. They hadn't yet talked about the press conference from afterward, either. Victor wouldn't have understood the original airing, but Yuuri had checked, and on the internet, fans had put up summaries in English within an hour, and full translations within a couple of days. Sometimes happy for him, sometimes outraged at him, mostly just shocked, which pretty well summarized Yuuri's feelings on his little speech, too.

Right now, however, he wasn't thinking about his recent victory, or worrying over the upcoming China Cup, or falling into that trap of looking up what awful things people on the internet were saying about him for hours on end (which he _knew_ didn't help anything). Right now, there was just the warm late-September air, and the Hasetsu ocean, and Victor reaching over to help wash the salt water out of his hair after they had spent the last hour splashing about.

"It doesn't feel like autumn at all, even though it's almost October," Victor noted when both of them had rinsed off. For once, Makkachin wasn't with them – she had been asleep when they left, too cute and content-looking for either of them to wake – and they paused to watch the waves, the seagulls, for a while longer.

"We're pretty far south here. I think it's a bit warmer than usual this year, too." Not out of the usual, though – not like that magical day that Victor had arrived when it had snowed, as though the cold had followed him from Russia. Yuuri couldn't remember it snowing in Hasetsu before, not more than a few lucky flakes on unusually chilly days.

Red spider lilies had started to pop up, so autumn was coming, slowly. Yuuri pointed them out as they started to head back to the onsen, strolling at a relaxed pace, enjoying the evening sunlight after having spent most of the day indoors. "There are red maples here, right?" Victor asked, after they passed a small tea shop that had small, hopeful paper maple leaves pasted to its windows. "I read about them. Can we go see them?"

"Not until the end of November, probably." Trust Victor to get excited about touristy things like that; the disappointed face he made at being told he would have to wait so long was funny. "Maybe the leaves are changing in Kyoto already."

"We should go to Kyoto someday," said Victor. "You can take me to all the good places."

Yuuri was about to reply that he'd never been to Kyoto and that Victor would be better off with a guidebook, when he noticed that Victor's hair wasn't shining quite as much as it had been a minute ago. The clouds that had been hanging near the horizon all day had finally spread out over the sky, and just as Yuuri glanced up, the first raindrop fell.

Within a few minutes, it was raining hard. Yuuri didn't mind the part where they got wet again – they'd only gotten so dry since coming out of the ocean – but it was suddenly a lot colder, and it was impossible to see. Victor grabbed his arm and dragged him into a nearby building.

Distracted by trying to get his glasses free enough of water to actually be able to look through them, it took Yuuri longer than it should have to realize what kind of building, exactly, Victor had decided to shelter in.

"Um," he said, and then, "Victor, we should go somewhere else," because the last thing either of them needed right now, especially after Yuuri's speech at the press conference, was to be caught together at a love hotel. Even if they weren't _doing_ anything there.

"Look how hard it's raining," Victor said, but his attention wasn't on the weather outside. Why was he looking at the room display?! "We could stay here until it's clear again."

"Victor!" Victor didn't seem to hear him at all; he was putting a finger to his lips, and Yuuri kind of hated that he was trying to see what rooms Victor looked most interested in, even though they were definitely not going to to use any of them, no, Victor was just curious because he liked new Japanese customs he had never seen before and – did he even know what this place was? "Victor, we can't."

"Why not?"

"Victor, this is a –" was there a better English word for it? If so, Yuuri didn't know it. "It's called a love hotel, it's not—"

"I know," Victor said, and there went that theory. "That means we could just rent a room for an hour or two, right? Get warm, dry off, wait for the storm to leave." He poked at a screen. "Yuuri, how does this work?"

Oh no. No, Yuuri was not going to help Victor rent a room here. No way.

Yuuri made it through about five minutes of the raining failing to stop and Victor whining at him before he gave in. Thank goodness this place was at least fully automated, and neither of them had to hand money over to a clerk, who might not have seen their faces, but there weren't a lot of people who would be arguing in English here in Hasetsu. That didn't stop Yuuri's ears from burning. These places were meant to be discreet, right? It wasn't a busy road with a lot of shops or anything, and it was raining so hard, so he told himself that nobody could have seen them come in.

It didn't help that Victor didn't just pick one of the plain, normal-looking rooms. He'd gone for the one with tons of mirrors and a pole in one corner. Yuuri didn't ask.

"Wow," Victor said as soon as they'd stepped inside the room that was theirs for the next couple of hours. Yuuri took his time pulling off his shoes as Victor practically hopped from one part of the room to another, getting excited over every little thing. Yuuri was kind of impressed by his ability to light up on seeing things like a miniature vending machine that only sold lube, or free condoms arranged in a nice pattern on a bedside table. It looked like he'd never been in a love hotel before, either. (Why would he have been? He had a very nice apartment all to himself to bring a lover back to, going by the pictures he posted online.)

"Let's take a bath!" Victor suggested, flinging open the door to the bathroom.

"The shower and the rain wasn't enough?"

"Yuuri, if you wait around in cold, wet clothes, you'll get sick. As your coach, I'm telling you to have a hot bath for the sake of your health."

Yuuri's clothes were soaked, yes, but they weren't cold at all, and the room wasn't even slightly chilled. Mostly, he wanted to dry off, not get back into the water. But Victor was giving him an expectant look, and taking a bath earlier than they usually did was hardly the worst demand Victor had made of him today.

They did their best to hang up their clothes so that they might dry a bit before they climbed into the bath – since they'd already washed off plenty, for once they didn't stop to scrub off first, which made Yuuri feel guilty anyway. The tub was bigger than any that he'd seen outside of an onsen, and long enough for both of them to stretch out.

"What are these?" There was a little basket full of all kinds of sample products perched next to the tub. Victor dripped all over them as he leafed through, pulling them out and stuffing them back in, sometimes reading off the names when he could. Yuuri had taught him how to write his name at his request, but it looked like he'd gone and picked up the rest of katakana as well; some of the ones he couldn't read, he made Yuuri translate for him.

When he got bored of that, he sat back next to Yuuri and they fell quiet. It was different like this than at the onsen. They always had the outdoor bath to themselves – the regulars didn't come out to bother them – but while Victor had a tendency to bump up against him, the bath there had plenty of space. Here, their hips and calves brushed when one of them shifted, nowhere else to go, and nothing to look at but the plain white walls, or the plain white ceiling, or Victor.

Yuuri kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling for a while, not thinking of much of anything in particular, until he heard a sigh. He turned his head to watch as Victor resettled himself against the edge of the tub, his shoulder pressing into Yuuri's. Victor's eyes were closed, his face relaxed – not smiling, not contemplative, just relaxed – and his half-dry hair was sticking to itself in odd clumps. He didn't look like the Victor Nikiforov from the screens and photos at all, not with his pale eyelashes laid against his cheek, the faint lines in his face Yuuri could see from so close.

Then Victor opened his eyes and caught Yuuri looking. Yuuri could feel his face heating as Victor smiled at him, but he didn't want to look away; he smiled back, feeling a bit silly. Victor raised one hand from the water; Yuuri didn't realize where it was heading quickly enough to react before Victor pushed his hair back, getting it all wet again.

"Victor," he complained, trying to wipe away the droplets running down his face as Victor laughed. "It's not going to stay like that."

"It's sticking," Victor said. "It looks good like that."

It probably looked all messy. "Does it?"

"It does," Victor insisted, leaning closer. "Very _eros_."

It was definitely not the heat of the bath that was making his face warm. Victor was so close – not crowding him, but his knee was bumping against Yuuri's leg, and his hand was touching his shoulder, almost curling around it. Victor was smiling at _him_ like there was something special there. Like he really could transform into something seductive just by taking off his glasses and combing his hair back.

Yuuri didn't know what to do with that look. He wanted Victor to keep looking at him like that – look at no-one but him like that – and he wished that he could be whatever it was that Victor seemed to be seeing in him. Someone who wasn't plain, who didn't struggle with doing well one moment and then crashing the next, who was worth Victor throwing away at least half a year to come train.

Someone who knew how to keep Victor here. Yuuri still didn't know what Victor's plans were for after the GPF. If he would get bored of Yuuri, or if watching Yuuri compete would make him want to return to competition, too, or if Yuuri doing well there (please, let him do well) would make him want to continue on as a proud coach.

Yuuri loved Victor's skating as much as anyone. He didn't want to take that away from him, and he didn't want to see him leave, either.

Looking away, Yuuri glanced at his fingers. "Maybe we should get out," he said, holding them up to show how they'd gone all wrinkly. "We could see if the rain has stopped."

After they dried themselves off with the fluffiest towels Yuuri had ever touched, Yuuri paused to pull his mostly-dry underwear back on. As he had expected, Victor didn't bother before he wandered over to the window. "It's still pouring out there," he said, pressing a hand to the tinted glass. He was smiling slightly in his reflection. Yuuri looked at it, and then his eyes started to slide, of their own volition, down Victor's spine.

He shifted his gaze before Victor caught him looking again, though with all the mirrors in here, it was impossible not to get at least a glimpse of him. "I thought autumn storms were supposed to be short," he said. "There's a saying about it. Though it's not really autumn yet."

"Hm?"

Yuuri sounded it out for him, since Victor had been picking up bits of Japanese here and there, from Yuuri's parents and from the random strangers in Hasetsu who had taken to him quickly. "It means autumn skies and human hearts are both supposed to change a lot."

"That's a mean saying," Victor said. He pulled the covers back from the bed and flopped down. "Human hearts don't have to change all the time."

"It's just a saying."

Victor patted the covers. Yuuri came over to sit on the bed, but Victor tugged on the blankets and gave him a hopeful look. "It's warmer under here," he said.

"I'm fine."

"Yuuri," Victor whined. "You'll get cold." He patted the covers more enthusiastically.

It _was_ kind of cold, now, after having been in the hot bath for so long; Yuuri gingerly slid himself under and stayed at the edge of the mattress. Despite all the times Victor had tried to get them into the same bed, it was strange for it to actually happen, and in a love hotel of all places. He was half-afraid that Victor would try to snuggle up to him, but he didn't, just turned on his side to smile at Yuuri. "Yuuri," he said, his voice soft, "you've loved skating since you were a kid, right?"

"Yeah." Even last year, when he'd let himself become so depressed, it hadn't been about the skating itself, not really. Being on the ice felt good. Being on the ice with Phichit and Celestino had been fine, for the most part. Being on the ice in front of an expectant crowd had been the main problem.

"So there's proof that it's wrong."

"I never said it was correct." He didn't want it to be, didn't want Victor's attention to be a fickle thing.

Victor gave a pleased hum and kept smiling at him. They fell into silence for a couple of minutes – there was just the rapid tapping of raindrops against the window – before Victor broke it again. "Hey, Yuuri?"

"Mm?" He glanced over to see Victor looking at something on the other side of the room, and turned his own head to try and figure out what it was. Wait, could he be looking at—

"How did you learn to pole dance?"

Yuuri froze. How did Victor know? Had Phichit ever posted about it on Twitter or something? Yuuri hadn't gone to any special lengths to hide it, it was just that most people heard _pole dancing_ and thought _stripping_ and _sex_ and Yuuri didn't want to have that awkward conversation, so he didn't talk about it. It had to be Phichit, or maybe....

He could feel Victor's gaze on him. Well. Anyway. Victor knew. "My rinkmate Phichit found out about the classes when I was training in Detroit," he said. "He didn't want to go alone, and he knew I liked trying out different kinds of dancing, so we went together. It turned out to be good training and fun."

"It looks hard." Victor lifted his head up slightly. "Could you show me some? Since we're stuck here?"

"Now?"

"Please?" Victor put on his begging face. "I like watching you dance."

Victor had been dropping compliments like that all summer – that Yuuri danced like he was making music, that his years of ballet had given him the grace he needed for his performances, that he moved beautifully when his mind wasn't too distracted by worrying about his jumps. Hearing things like that from Victor was a dream come true, but a part of his brain kept insisting that Victor had to be getting something wrong, that there wasn't anything special about what he did. But he did get good PCS scores, and surely Victor would know something about good dancing.

And anyway, he hadn't had the opportunity to practice pole dancing since returning to Hasetsu. Yuuri could feel Victor's eyes on him as he stood and first tested the pole to make sure it was actually sturdy enough to dance on. It was, and he considered pulling on more of his damp clothes. On the one hand, he wasn't sure he was ready to pole dance in front of Victor in nothing but his underwear; on the other, wet clothes. And Victor had seen him in this and less plenty enough.

"Think of it as practice for _eros_!" Victor called out. Yuuri sighed and went to at least put on his shirt before digging out his phone.

He picked something easy to start off with – some American pop song he'd practiced to a lot – and swung himself onto the pole. He wasn't doing anything that impressive – warming up a little, messing around, remembering how this worked after months away – but Victor clapped at the end anyway. His eyes were stuck to Yuuri, and he was smiling, and it was the same kind of feeling Yuuri got when skating practice was going well: Victor's attention was all his, and he was earning it, and everything was good.

Maybe that was why he shifted into something harder when his phone autoplayed to the next song, showing off for Victor, enjoying it for himself. Like he'd told Victor, this was fun, and it was different from ballet, or from tango, or the other dance classes he had taken.

Yuuri slid from the pole when he was ready to stop and reached for his phone. He paused it before it could start the next song, but then he saw the song under that one in the app's list and had an idea.

It was embarrassing. But he was already doing this, and Victor would like it, and Victor had already joked about it, and he could improvise something good....

He switched the song before his mind could talk him out of it, and hastily set his phone back down to grab the pole once more. Victor, in the middle of some comment, quieted down.

Guitar strings strummed, and then a few seconds later, the music started in earnest. The clapping beat in the background seemed to be going in time with Yuuri's heart as he swung himself up and didn't let his thoughts get in the way.

 _On Love: Eros_. They were past talking about katsudon, Victor had said, and he was right: it had served its purpose, but he could do better than that now. Yuuri ran through the story again in his head, saw Victor sitting slack-jawed on the bed and didn't have to imagine that he was some attractive, foreign man that anyone would want as a lover, because he was.

Putting himself in the role of the seducer was easier than it usually was. Here was his chance to prove himself the most attractive in the whole town, a dance to show off his beauty and strength in the hopes of a night together, all of his passion poured into his movements. He pulled off a more difficult move because he knew he could, because he wanted Victor to see it, then arched his back and threw a hand out invitingly, fingers arched in the gentle way he had learned from Minako.

Yuuri was panting when the song ended, swinging himself off the pole and into something like his routine's ending pose as the last few notes finished playing. After a moment of catching his breath, he shakily reached for his phone to turn it off. The past couple of minutes were a blur. Suddenly, the room was very quiet, except for the pattering of rain against the window.

"That was amazing," Victor breathed. "Yuuri, if I'd known you could do _that_ , I would have told you to use that as inspiration for your skating! It was _perfect_." He looked at Yuuri with wide eyes, his smile small but earnest.

He also seemed to have dragged the covers further into his lap. Which was a perfectly normal reaction to someone pole-dancing to a song about erotic love in front of him. Yes.

Yuuri couldn't quite believe that he'd done that, but he had, and Victor was still giving him that surprisingly soft look, the one that he'd given Yuuri in the onsen while telling him why he had come to Japan and the kind that he'd given him after the competition.

"I'll try using it next time, then," Yuuri said, and went to go sit next to him again. Victor gave a satisfied nod, kept smiling at him

Yuuri had done well at his first competition of the season. He could show everyone in China why Victor had chosen him, why Yuuri was going to keep him. Whatever form the love between them took – Yuuri would show it off to them all.

Victor shifted closer. Just a little, not too much. Outside, the rain continued pouring, steady, with no sign of letting up.


End file.
